In The Line Of Duty: Two West Palm Officers Killed Same Day By Gunman

Q: Have two police officers ever been killed the same day in Palm Beach County?
A: Cops will tell you that death can come from the most unlikely source. On April 7, 1967, West Palm Beach motorcycle officers David R. Van Curler and Sgt. William H. Fletcher were called to a disturbance at the Fidelity Federal Savings and Loan at 45th Street and Broadway. Mechanic John Calvin Cooley was beating on the door, demanding entry and shouting, “I am John the Baptist!”
Fletcher arrived first. He called for backup and tried to calm Cooley down. But Cooley somehow got his gun and shot him several times.
Minutes later, the backup arrived. It was Van Curler. As he rounded the corner, Cooley picked him off like a target at the carnival. Van Curler was dead before he hit the ground. Cooley picked up Van Curler’s gun and emptied it into both officers.
A Vietnam veteran grabbed Fletcher’s gun and, despite pleas from both Cooley and bystanders to shoot him, held him until other officers arrived. He later learned the gun was empty.
The list of Cooley’s secondary victims is far longer. Fletcher left a widow and three children, Van Curler a wife and five children. Cooley, married and father of 11, was declared insane and sent to a mental hospital, where he died of natural causes in 1974.
It would be more than two decades before the city had to again deal with the tragedy of a fallen officer. In August 1998, Norberto “Spiderman” Pietri, a self-described professional burglar with a $600-a-day cocaine habit, escaped from the Lantana Community Correctional Center.
Four days later, motorcycle officer Brian Chappell pulled him over near Dixie Highway and Southern Boulevard. As he approached the car, Pietri fired one shot that struck the 31-year-old in the heart. Pietri, arrested two days later, has been on Death Row for the murder since 1990.